Love my job, since I've been bringing in $82h… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I'm making it online. (Home more information)http://goo.gl/8jSFjReply

I've been following that NCase for a while now. I love its design and compactness.

Assuming that Dustin will review it, I will guess that he will not like it too. The designer Necere himself did several temperature & noice benchmarks. And they are high. In fact, he doesn't even recommend watercooling the GPU with the H220 due to the fans have a lack of airflow. It is recommended to use a video card with a blower style cooler.

If you are watercooling, only use the 120mm radiator kits. The case needs the other fan slot. So you'd be better off with a nice air cooler from Noctua, etc.

Based on that, Dustin will have the same complaint here. And most likely another complaint because it's so small and tight.

P.S. I will get an NCase. I'm not hating on it. I'm just saying Dustin likely will.Reply

So, basically, too big for a compact mITX case, but too small for anything you'd want to put in a larger mITX case.Or, more succinctly, mediocre. Especially with the likes of APU and Haswell and their improved graphics that don't require the extra space.

honest question: what else does Antec even make? Seems to me they only make power supplies and cases... if they dont continue to innovate in cases because they are scared of a post pc era, what else would they even do to survive?Reply

Hey Dustin,Great review!I would really like to see all the benchmarks re-run with the sides off.I could see myself (and other people) bringing it to LAN-party's all buttoned up but taking the sides off once the gaming begins.I imagine that the noise would increase but it might the increased airflow might make using a more powerful CPU/GPU combo possible.-TravisReply

Seems very similar to PC-Q11. That one is larger, but it takes full-sized power supply, full-sized optical drive, has 140mm fan and mounts for 2x3.5" and 2x2.5" disk drives.

Lian-Li has two new cases: PC-Q27 and PC-Q28. Would be nice to get reviews for them.

Overall though it seems that Lian-Li has a few well-designed modules and then tries to throw them together in different combinations. Unfortunately, the success rate is very low. PC-Q11 was a nice exception, if you disregarded tiny side panel screws and lack of internal USB 3 connector.Reply

"Lian-Li has two new cases: PC-Q27 and PC-Q28. Would be nice to get reviews for them."

I'm considering the PC-Q27 for an office computer for my wife. I'll use an i3 chip with integrated graphics so it will not have a cumbersome GPU (which she wouldn't need). Concern is about passive cooling since the case doesn't have a fan.Reply

I miss the Lian Li of old, when they had nice features like slide out motherboard trays and the cases were made out of stronger aluminum. They are concentrating too much on making their cases lightweight and visually different, which is sacrificing quality and features. Their innovations of late may look "cool" to some people, but hardly have any functional value. They really need to learn from Fractal Design and Silverstone.Reply

Aria. even though Phyllis`s report is astonishing, last friday I got a gorgeous Citroλn 2CV since getting a cheque for $7974 this munth and just over ten/k last-month. it's by-far the nicest-work Ive had. I actually started 6 months ago and practically straight away got me over $78, per-hr. I use details from here,, Exit35.comCHECK IT OUTReply

The moment I looked at the pictures and saw where the PSU was mounted I stopped reading and looked at the temp/noise charts. I don't know how Dustin was even bothered to finish reviewing the case from that point. I don't understand how an engineer in the year 2013 re-use a psu mounting design that failed already a decade ago. I thought we had stopped mounting PSU's above the cpu after the Pentium II's?Reply

I think you are being hard on this very small and unique case. First off 50-65 celcius under load is not bad at all considering the case. and 35db not bad at all either. I am coming from laptops that run that and dbs can be higher so I am not as picky. The temps are well under specs and this is a much smaller case the prodigy or sg08 that you speak so highly of. In fact this is one of the smallest itx cases you can buy with a real 450 watt power supply and 760 asus small video card. The prodigy is downright huge and is really an mini atx case. Not only can you pick this up and go easily but it will fit in a backpack or in carry on luggage like a waterproof pelican 1510 which only a couple of other cases will do. The look is quality and unique and you can put it behind a monitor whereas the prodigy and shoebox style cases can take up too much room especially the wobbly plastic prodigy. This is a quality specialist case and My plan is to ditch the optical drive, get a silverstone gold 450 sft modular, one ssd and the new Asus 760 mini. I wll just udate the mini video card every couple of years and be good to go! Would of been nice to have someone really review this with a modular powersupply and getting rid of any excess cables with the new 760.Reply

The review mentions the 120mm fan mount, but would they take a 140mm fan with 120mm mounting holes? I often use the Prolimatech Ultra Sleek Vortex 14 for that purpose; although it's really a CPU cooler it makes a great case fan thanks to being only 15mm thick, provided you're okay with only having a PWM connection.

Personally I think this case looks pretty sweet, but I can understand the reviewers issues with it. But assuming you have a video card that is single height, perhaps you could use one of those single-slot GPU cooler blower fans to help keep the heat down? Personally I was thinking of maybe cutting a piece of plastic to direct some of the airflow down towards the GPU.

I'm also hoping Lian-Li may just ditch the optical drive in a future model, as it's a better place to put your 2.5" drive(s), and you could probably do it now if you wanted to keep them away from the GPU. Plus it may open up room for a second 120mm fan on the front; I suppose technically you could even do that yourself on a TU100 right now if you're willing to drill into it, which is one of the hidden benefits of aluminium (it's a lot easier than even thin steel).

You're right though that the attention to detail is a bit lacking, as this could otherwise be a perfect case for small form factor computer, without sacrificing (much) component choice.Reply